


Happiness is an illusion

by kisahawklin



Series: Supernatural Season 14 Tagathon [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s14e08 Byzantium, Gen, Hugs, Jack's dads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 09:19:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17322251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kisahawklin/pseuds/kisahawklin
Summary: All I wanted out of this episode was a Sam & Jack hug. On the way to the hug, I detoured into a little light Sastiel. WHOOPS. Can be read as totally gen, if you don't have Sastiel glasses.





	Happiness is an illusion

After dinner, after they wash the dishes as a family and watch Jack's favorite movie and watch him eat the rest of his candy bar stash, they all walk him to his room. 

He's beaming, his cheeks rosy, the picture of health. Sam wants to hug him so badly.

"Thank you," Jack says, holding each of their eyes in turn. Dean looks away. Cas just nods once. Sam holds them, hoping he can get across with a look everything he can't put into words. 

"You're family," Dean says, and that makes Sam ache because it was hard in the beginning, knowing Jack was family but not having Dean on board. It's Dean that protects the family; he's the one that goes to the ends of the earth and back, the person who's always been Sam's bedrock. It's just part of who Sam is, he has always known it about Dean, and it hurt to think he hadn't included Jack at first. 

Jack's smile softens. "I love you too, Dean," he says, and Sam can actually hear Dean swallow the emotions he's trying not to show.

"I love all of you," he says, smiling at Sam, a simple, guileless smile that Sam can't help but love, and then he looks at Cas and the smile takes on something more complicated. 

"Thank you for everything you did," he says, and Sam turns to look at Cas, alarm bells ringing in the back of his mind. He can see the warning in Cas's face, but Dean's given in to his rising emotions and gone in to hug Jack again.

"Told ya, you're family. You don't give up on family."

There's a bitter laugh in the back of his mind, but Sam manages not to let it slip. It may be true now but it hasn't always been. He doesn't like to dwell so he lets it slide. Besides it's all about Jack right now, anyway.

"Now go to bed, squirt," Dean says, ruffling Jack's hair. "And tomorrow no more of this Lifetime crap, it's back to training for you."

Jack takes a flying leap for the bed, laughing. "Guns?" he asks, sitting up.

Dean laughs too, ending in a short, "no." It doesn't put a dent in Jack's grin. "Let's start small. Knives."

Seeing Jack in his bed, smiling and sitting up, hits Sam hard. The chair he'd sat in for days next to Jack's bed is still there, he can still feel the cold of Death approaching at his back. The exhaustion comes on all at once, as it always does after they've had a major win with no time to process the loss that preceded it. "Night, kiddo," he says, giving him as much of a smile as he can. 

Jack's own smile falters a little and Sam makes his bigger long enough to wipe the doubt off Jack's face before he turns around to head for his own room.

Dean's footsteps ring in the hall too, and the low rumble of Cas's voice as he says his own good nights follows them as they go their separate ways. Cas still doesn't sleep; part of Sam hopes Cas will watch over Jack tonight, just to be sure.

When he pushes open the door to his room, he sighs. It's a mess. He'd stopped bothering with anything but Jack at the end; there're clothes everywhere and the bed isn't made. His bookshelves are in shambles. 

His body is screaming for rest, but his mind is still spinning, so he probably wouldn't be able to sleep even if he did lie down. He starts picking up the laundry instead, piling it into the corner so he can do it tomorrow. He'll grab Dean's and Jack's too; laundry is one of those chores he really enjoys, mindless busywork to keep his hands occupied while he lets his mind wander.

Shelves are next; righting books that were pulled off the shelves in the scramble to find anything nephilim-related. There are still big gaps in his collection, but he'll grab those books out of Jack's room and the war room later. 

Something about the disarray of the bed makes him want clean sheets. He heads to the laundry room to grab a set (they really need to pick a linen closet somewhere closer) and hears Cas's voice still rumbling in the hall outside Jack's room.

The conversation he has with himself seems to take forever. Does he listen in? Announce himself? Turn around? He knows the ramifications to each, knows what the right thing is, and yet…

A moment later he is quietly coming up the hall, trying to keep the rising guilt down even as he strains to hear the words. Jack's always slept with his door open so they almost never close it. Sam's not sure that's a good thing, but it's worked out for him in the short run so he hasn't questioned it.

"Sam," Jack's voice says when he gets a few doors away. 

Damn it.

Sam takes a deep breath and walks the last few feet to stand in Jack's doorway, his arms full of poorly folded sheets. "Hey. Sorry if I interrupted, I just…" He shrugs, lifting up the sheets. "It was time to change them."

Jack smiles, his eyes seeming a little heavy. 

"Cas, you should let Jack sleep."

There's a protest on Jack's face but Cas puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him. "Sam's right. You should sleep. We can talk more tomorrow."

Jack's face looks mutinous but he slides under the covers anyway, curling on his side and watching Castiel head to the door. 

"Good night," Cas says, and Sam echoes it a moment later. Jack smiles at that and closes his eyes.

Cas pulls the door halfway shut and falls into step with Sam as they head to his room. "Are you okay?" Sam asks, because there was definitely something fishy between Cas and Jack and he needs to know if the other shoe is going to drop. "Did you do something for Jack that's going to come back to haunt us?"

It's a conscious decision, that "us." He's made decisions for himself before, and watched Dean and Cas make them too, but it always turns out bad for all of them. Nothing they do ever affects just the one who makes the call.

"No," Cas says, firm. He doesn't look up, though, and Sam knows he's hiding something. He's never one to avoid eye contact unless he's not telling the truth.

They get to Sam's room and Sam knows this is the end of the conversation unless he does something. "Help me put these on?" he asks, despite the fact that he will end up remaking the bed afterward because Cas doesn't do hospital corners.

Cas narrows his eyes; he knows Sam is up to something but he's still not very good at knowing what that might be. Sam sets the top sheet on the dresser and hands a corner of the fitted sheet to Cas, nodding at the head of the bed. 

"So tell me about Heaven," he says, tucking the sheet under the corner of the bed. It takes Cas a minute to figure out how to do it, and once he does, Sam goes up to the top of the bed to pull that corner over the mattress as well. Cas follows his lead and does the same for the foot of the bed.

"It is not good," Cas says. "The power is still fluctuating and now there are even fewer angels."

That perks Sam's ears up. "Fewer? Did something happen up there?"

He figures out the top sheet and hands a corner to Cas, letting him pull the whole thing across the bed. Cas glares at him; Sam knows he's hit on something.

"What happened, Cas?"

"Nothing."

Sam doesn't believe it for a moment. "Did you have to fight the angels to get Jack back?" He doesn't think Cas would kill any more angels unless they tried to keep him from Jack.

"No," Cas says. "Zuriel was dead before I arrived."

Sam takes over the bed-making; Cas is lost in thought anyway. He's willing to wait for just a moment, see if Cas admits what happened freely. He gets the blanket on and is just folding the sheet over the top when Cas says, in a low voice, "It was Shadow. The guardian of the Empty."

The Empty. Where Cas went when he died. Sam swallows hard and concentrates on the bed.

"It killed an angel?" 

Cas sits down hard on the bed. "Yes. And would have killed them all if…"

 _Oh no._ "What did you do, Cas?"

"Nothing that will affect anyone but me."

Sam comes around the side of the bed. He needs Cas to look at him. He waits until Cas finally looks up and meets his eyes. "What did you do?" 

Cas looks down. "It wanted to take Jack. I offered myself in exchange."

"Cas!" Sam says, falling to his knees and putting his hands on Cas's face, forcing him to look Sam in the eyes. "You know making deals never does anything good. How much time did it give you?"

Cas reaches up and puts his hands over Sam's, pulling them down and holding them between his own. He doesn't stop looking in Sam's eyes, though, so at least he's not planning on lying any more. "Indeterminate. There is a set of parameters. When I breach them, it will come for me."

Oh, this is good! Sam's heart leaps. They're the kings of gaming the system; they will definitely be able to avoid whatever it is that will mean Cas is taken away from them. "Okay," he says, standing back up, starting to pace. "What are they?"

Cas looks down. Something about that isn't right; is it something inevitable? What is inevitable about Cas? When he finally grows his wings back all the way? It seems to be taking forever, so they might be long dead before then, but that doesn't mean he wants Cas to die.

"Cas," he nudges, stopping the pacing for a moment. "Come on."

"Happiness," Jack says from the doorway. "When he's happy, it will come for him."

Sam is confused. Jack is back with them, their family is, for the moment, complete. How is that not happiness? "But… Jack's here. We're all here, and whole. Isn't that happiness?"

Cas looks up again, meeting Sam's eyes. "Yes," he says simply. "But we have work to do and there's still danger in the world. Michael is still out there. And I have not yet allowed myself to be absolved of my past actions."

A deep breath. Sam can understand this; even when he's happy, there's that part of him that can't allow himself to be fully carefree. There's too much history to ignore. "Good," he says, feeling a little uncomfortable that he is grateful for Cas's guilt. "Then you'll be with us a good long while."

Cas smiles; it's sad and Sam wants nothing more than to wipe that look off his face – which he can never do. It's that sense of responsibility that will keep Cas with them. 

"We'll figure something out, Cas," Sam says, because it's breaking his heart to know that Cas will never be truly happy. He wants Cas to be happy – he wants them all to be happy. And if that means having to cheat the Empty, then he'll find a way.

"I don't think you need to." Cas smiles again, this time less sad and more self-deprecating. "There's no chance I can be fully happy until we've conquered all evil in the world, which will certainly take many human lifetimes, and once you are gone from me, there is no chance for my happiness not to be tainted by your loss. Shadow may never be able to come for me."

Cas is staring straight at him when he speaks, so Sam's left guessing whether he means Sam in particular or the Winchesters altogether, but either way, it warms Sam's heart. It was a long road for him and Cas, but they've found their way to mutual love and respect. He's not letting Cas go anytime soon.

"Not sure that's necessarily a good thing," Sam says, "but I understand. I don't know that happiness is ever in the cards for people like us."

That seems to upset Jack, and he stomps over and wraps his arms around Sam, holding on tightly. Sam holds back, closing his eyes and allowing himself just a moment to be happy that Jack is with them, safe and, for the moment, whole. He kisses the top of Jack's head. "It's okay, Jack. You don’t have to be happy to appreciate your family, or to be glad we're all here together."

Jack nods, his head scraping against Sam's chest, and when Cas comes in and hugs them both, Sam smiles. This feeling he has, it's not happiness. It's bone deep, and it's comforting, but it's not happiness. He catches Cas's eyes and the clear calmness there tells him it is the same for Cas. Maybe they will someday be happy, but for now, Sam's going to appreciate the small kindnesses.


End file.
